In recent years, an integrated circuit (IC) chip capable of delivering information to an external device in a non-contact way is taken notice of. For example, it is considered that identification (ID) information is stored in the above-described non-contact type IC chip to be used for identification or management of commodities. The non-contact type IC chip used for the above-described purposes is called a radio frequency ID (RFID) tag. The RFID tag includes one capable of writing data in a memory of the non-contact type IC chip and one capable of the execution of various types of processes using received data or stored data such as an authentication process between the RFID tag and an external device.
To the non-contact type IC chip, an antenna for communication with the external devices is connected. When using a bare chip mounting technology, a non-contact type IC chip is mounted on a resin substrate having formed thereon an antenna to connect terminals of the non-contact type IC chip and the antenna in many cases (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-143037). In an IC card using a coiled antenna, the non-contact type IC chip is mounted on the IC card so as to be arranged over the coiled antenna to connect both ends of the coiled antenna and the terminals of the non-contact type IC chip in some cases (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-113144). Further, as a wireless IC tag similarly using a coiled antenna, there is used one in which the non-contact type IC chip and the coiled antenna are directly laminated together (see, e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-229098).
Meanwhile, a non-contact IC chip for an RFID tag is also used while encapsulated in a surface mount device (SMD) in recent days. When provided as an SMD package, the non-contact IC chip exerts, for example, the effect of improving reliability of a junction at the time of connecting it to a substrate having formed thereon an antenna.
As described above, when the non-contact IC chip is encapsulated in the SMD package, a plurality of connection terminals are not connected to an antenna in the SMD package in many cases. At this time, for the purpose of preventing the unnecessary connection terminals from being connected to the antenna on a substrate, the antenna is formed on a region except a region having mounted thereon the SMD package in an SMD substrate. However, since a mounting area of the SMD package is larger than that of the non-contact IC chip, there arises a problem that an antenna formation area on the substrate is relatively reduced, and therefore, for example, a communication distance becomes short. For making it possible to have a longer communication distance, a size of the entire RFID tag including the substrate needs to be increased.